Metastatic liver cancer

Try to smell the flowers, like going in your garden and discover the first spring flowers…

That’s what I do to set my mind away from the daily care of fathers’ secondary liver cancer. Each time I watch the flowers, I cry, yet it keeps me sane. If I pretend nothing is wrong, I can imagine all emotions will start flowing once father is gone…

I am told by the professional palliative care takers that:

• bulking all emotions up and
• keeping strong no matter what

then as soon as father is gone,
I will be drenched empty as well and
fall in a black hole.

So it is important to find an outlet for your emotions. For me it is having a walk in the garden or talking to people that also took palliative care of a loved one. Other people with all respect don’t have a clue what I am talking about, and most of them really are not listening.

And not duragesic.

We gave father a stronger dose as we all interpret fathers’ face as being in pain. Father asked for drops, and the only drops he ever took are the Contramal drops.

Fathers’ pain medication went from Durogesic patch 25microgram/h to 50. No patch from 37.5: kind of all or nothing this pain medication…

Let’s see what tomorrow brings for fathers’ secondary liver cancer. Today was a day of sleep, just sleep.

On top of that fathers’ swallowing doesn’t function well, so from time to time some saliva must enter his airways… a lot of coughing at night and coughing when drinking.

As if cancer on its own is not bad enough… All these side-effects are a real torture as well.

Advanced Liver Cancer

The following are side-effects father has because of his advanced liver cancer treatment stage.

• breathing in saliva in stead of swallowing
• sleeping and being tired
• bad liver functions playing tricks with the brain
• swollen feet

A follow up on yesterdays’ Lord of Pain

That fathers’ secondary liver cancer is taking him down is a fact. Yet the way down is not a straight line. His cancer moves more like waves:

• yesterday father was visiting people
• today father was in bed and seemed to be in pain

Seemed to be in pain

Maybe the pain and exhaustion came as a consequence of the good moments we had yesterday?

Tomorrow will be another metastatic liver cancer day to find out if father needs a higher dose of morphine in his pain treatment.

Father lived through the world war so expressing pain in words is kind of foreign to him. Which makes cancer treatment a difficult call when it comes to his pain management.